Blog Traffic

May 30, 2005

Reports of notable NY resentencings

A night with high-speed access on the road has allowed me to catch up on some Booker news from the end of last week. And since I am in NYC, I was particularly intrigued by the news reports of resentencing decisions from SDNY Judges Harold Baer and Gerard Lynch.

As detailed in this NY Law Journal story, Judge Baer in United States v. Murray, 02 CR 1214, apparently concluded that when "resentencing a defendant [pursuant to a Booker remand], a court has the authority to consider what happened before and after the original sentence was imposed." As the article notes, the "proper" considerations at post-Booker resentencings were not directly addressed by the Second Circuit in Crosby (or, for that matter, by SCOTUS in Booker). Filling in this gap, Judge Baer reportedly "issued a broad interpretation of facts that can be considered in resentencing."

As detailed in this NY Times article, Judge Lynch at resentencing, through the imposition of a reduced sentence, added another chapter to the remarkable case history of US v. Pabon-Cruz — a case which the judge once described as "without question the worst case of [his] judicial career" due in part to the inconsistencies in federal sentencing of child pornography offenses. Some of the backstory of this case can be found via this post, and whether this story is now complete may depend on whether one of the parties seeks another trip to the Second Circuit.

I have not yet been able to find on-line the rulings in Murray or Pabon-Cruz, but the news accounts linked above leave me eager to know more about these decisions. I would be grateful for materials or insights from anyone with more information concerning these notable cases.

UPDATE: I could not find Murray on-line because I did not realize it was decided way back on May 20. Aided by the ever helpful Fran Pratt, I can now report that the decision can be had at 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9649 and 2005 WL 1200185.